! It's the 5th - Read your Nursing Education Expert Newsletter!

Published: Fri, 05/05/17

Nursing Education Expert Newsletter

May 5, 2017 Volume 2, Issue 5

In this Newsletter:

How Did National Nurses Week Start?

National Nurses Week in the US: May 6-12

National Nurses Week in Canada: May 8-12

National Student Nurses' Day: May 8

International Nurses Day: May 12

April Posts focused on Nursing Research Topics

May Blog Posts will Focus on...

Hi ,

Can you believe that Summer is almost here? It's beautiful in southwest Colorado today - I hope it is nice in your part of the world!

Nurses Week is being celebrated in the US May 6-12. Do you know how Nurses Week started? or Why May 6-12 is the designated week for this celebration?

Did you know that Nurses Week used to be in February? Celebrating nurses and their contributions to healthcare didn't start in the US until 1974, though folks tried to get nurses recognized earlier. In 1953, Dorothy Sutherland of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare proposed a Nurse Day for October, but President Eisenhower did not take action on this proposal. The next year, in 1954, National Nurse Week was celebrated - one time - October 11-16 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Florence Nightingale's work in Crimea. Though attempts were made to get Congress to declare an annual week of national recognition, they failed (American Nurses Association, n.d.).

The first government recognition of an annual National Nurse Week came in 1974 by President Nixon and was celebrated in February. "National Recognition Day for Nurses" was officially proclaimed as May 6 by President Reagan in 1982, after some lobbying by the American Nurses Association. So now National Nurses Week starts on May 6 (National RN Recognition Day) and ends on Florence Nightingale's birthday on May 12th.

National Student Nurses' Day is celebrated on May 8. National School Nurse Day is celebrated on the Wednesday of National Nurses Week.

The International Council of Nurses (ICN) designated May 12th as International Nurses Day in 1974, though they have officially celebrated nurses since 1965. Nurses all over the world are celebrated with ceremonies, religious services, and other recognitions. The ICN International Nurses Day theme for 2017 is Nurses: A Voice to Lead - Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. You can click on the link to get their PR toolkit. For my international readers, the toolkit is also available in Albanian, Czech, German, Italian, Japanese, and Portuguese.

The American Nurses Association's theme for National Nurses Week 2017 is: "Nursing: the Balance of Mind, Body, and Spirit.” Scroll down for info about a free webinar and toolkit available for download.

Many hospitals and healthcare institutions will celebrate their nursing staff somehow -- maybe with a a ceremony, awards, lunch, or free stuff. I'd encourage you to tell your institutions that you'd like a "gift" that promotes your continued excellence as nurses. I mean, seriously, how many water bottles do you need?

So what would that excellence gift be? Free continuing education? More tuition help? A CINAHL subscription in the hospital library? Books? Journal subscriptions? What?

How is your institution or country celebrating the important work that nurses do? Email me back and let me know! I'll create a blog post with your comments. It will be fun to see how nurses are celebrated across the world!

April's Blog Posts

The blog theme in April focused on nursing research concepts. I discussed some basic concepts: those of which many undergrad and graduate nursing students and APRNs often struggle.

Photo credit:(c) Shutterstock.com

Category: Expert Advice

How to Evaluate Websites for Credibility

Some questions I get from readers are not always related to career issues, so I've added the label of Expert Advice to alternate with Career Advice for the first post of the new month. This first post in April provided information about information literacy and specifically about 5 characteristics to look for before believing the information you find on a website.

FYI: The May Expert Advice post came out on May 2nd and was about EBP Resources: Online Clinical Practice Guidelines

Category: Nursing Research

What’s the Difference Between Statistical Significance and Clinical Significance?

Significance is a term we use in research, a lot. But there is a difference between a finding being statistically significant and whether it is clinically significant. This post provided guidelines for how to discern statistical significance from clinical significance. One concept deals with whether the researcher can reject the null hypothesis and one deals with whether the research result is meaningful for patients. Read the post to learn the difference. Bonus content: I also discuss 3 research "sticking points" that will help you understand research studies better. Examples included!

What Do P-Values Really Mean?

This post was all about REALLY understanding the purpose of an alpha level or p-value -- which is a probability estimate. I do a quick review of hypothesis testing to remind you of what the researcher is trying to determine with their study, then discuss how the p-value gets chosen and how to interpret it. I give you plenty of examples that you can follow when interpreting the studies you are reading.

What Do Confidence Intervals Really Tell You?

The last nursing research post of April discussed confidence intervals. These are the estimates that you will be seeing more of in the future, if you haven't already seen them in research studies. CIs give you a more precise estimate of whether or not the research result in the study you are reading is in the ballpark of the population mean. It can tell you whether the result is statistically significant and give you an objective result to help you determine clinical significance, as well. I created a few diagrams in this post to help you visually understand and interpret CIs.

FYI:

I added to my post on theoretical frameworks by presenting an overview of common theoretical frameworks used in nursing research, nursing education, and nursing practice. This section is near the end of the notes on this page.
I also posted a video on General Guidelines for Writing Formal Papers: APA Format on YouTube. You can access it here.

Theme for May: Evidence-Based Practice

Evidence-based practice concepts are the theme for the month of May. December 2016 and January 2017 also had an EBP focus.

My Quick Tip for You This Month: Critical Appraisal of CPGs

The Expert Advice post that just came out on Tuesday, May 2 was on online Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) resources. I'll do a whole post on how to critically appraise a CPG, but for now - here are some things to pay attention to:

As I wrote to Don from Ohio, BEFORE you use any CPGs, make sure you understand how the authors put it together. They need to be completely transparent in their methods --- Which databases did they search, Did they tell you the search terms and give you a flow chart of how many articles they started with and the reasons for not including studies? How did they decide on the quality of the studies included? How did the authors settle disagreements among themselves? Which level of evidence scale did they use? Did they also grade the recommendations?

The bottom line is that you want to be sure that the CPG is really comprised of the best evidence out there and the only way to do that is to critique the methods section FIRST!

Remember that the stronger the research methods, the more confidence you can have in the results.

Thanks , I appreciate you! I hope you are finding valuable information in the blog posts, podcasts, videos, resources, and newsletter. I've also listed some other resources for life-long learning below my signature.

Thanks for your time!
Strive for Excellence!

Cathy

P.S. Please share my website with your friends and colleagues. Just forward this email to them. They can click on the link below and join us.

FREE REGISTRATION FOR NURSING EDUCATION EXPERT RESOURCES!

National Nurses Week 2017 May 6-12, 2017

Register Today for the Free Webinar

Get the National Nurses Week 2017 Resource Toolkit

The National Nurses Week Toolkit will be a useful ANA resource that provides you with additional ways to recognize nurses for their professional skills and abilities.

Show your gratitude with a branded "Thank-You Card." Give every nurse a certificate of appreciation or hang display banners throughout the office. The National Nurses Week toolkit will give you the items needed to plan a great celebration.

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